The ceding rules don't apply here because no cut occurred. The rule change allowing a cut to be ceded didn't change what constitutes a cut, only what happens after a cut occurred.

The Jammer never gained a superior position because that superior position is established when the Skater is upright and in-bounds. At the time they are upright and in-bounds, they are not in a superior position and so haven't cut. Thus there is nothing to cede.

Think of how this scenario would be called under the previous ruleset. A cut wouldn't be called until the Jammer stood up. Not because they had failed to cede (that concept didn't exist yet) but because they hadn't cut yet. Same applies here.

Taco's right. But just to answer the other possible situation - if the jammer had returned to the track while upright and THEN fallen down... then yes - even though all the opponents had skated past her, she must still exit the track immediately to cede.

The Jammer never gained a superior position because that superior position is established when the Skater is upright and in-bounds. At the time they are upright and in-bounds, they are not in a superior position and so haven't cut. Thus there is nothing to cede.

The highly technical nature of those answers are making my brain short out a little and they seem like they could be at odds with each other in certain situations. They feel like answers in the spirit of the 2015 ruleset, and I'm kind of looking for an answer more in the spirit of 2017 ruleset. =)

Is it fair to say:A jammer who goes out of bounds and then returns to the track in-front of any opponents who had superior position on the jammer at the time she went out of bounds must still return out of bounds even if all of those opponents go out of play or move ahead of the jammer before she can return out of bounds.So even though every opponent that could have drawn a cut on the jammer has chosen to skate ahead of her and leave the jammer all alone at the back of the engagment zone, she still has to go over and touch out of bounds or she gets a cut?

What makes this complicated is that in your scenario, there is no cut in the first place, so that no, she doesn't need to cede a cut that didn't happen. The reason there is no cut is that she returned to the track while down. A downed skater hasn't gained position on anyone, and thus doesn't commit a cutting penalty until she stands up ahead of skaters she's not supposed to.

WFTDA Rule/Clarification:

Rule 4.2.2: "It is illegal for a Skater to use the out-of-bounds area to gain position"

C4.38: "Skaters cannot re-establish their position on the track while down."

So in your scenario, she does not need to leave the track, because she didn't cut.

If she had re-entered while upright, then there would have been a pending cut, and she would need to immediately cede, even if all the cut skaters had raced ahead of her before she could.

The cede is a "take backsie" of the illegal action. The cutting penalty is basically held in limbo. Any playing of derby by the cutting Skater is a penalty. The only way to remove the earned penalty is to leave the track.

The fundamental problem is that this is literally everything we know about ceding:

WFTDA Rule/Clarification:

Scenario C4.37Red Pivot blocks White Jammer to the inside and forward, across the apex. White Jammer returns fully in bounds with both skates for a moment, and then immediately leaves the track.

Outcome: No penalty.

Rationale: White Jammer did not meaningfully gain position on anybody because they immediately left the track.

Keep in Mind: If White Jammer had not immediately left the track, White Jammer should be penalized.

That's it. There is absolutely nothing else in writing, so everything else comes down to discussions.

That said, I will agree with Taco - the broad consensus in the discussions I have observed is that this verbiage means that you must touch out to cede, even if no one still on the track has superior position.

Cool, that's what I thought based on other posts here but I needed to see some other people say it too. I'm happy to see other people point out the serious lack of direction in the rules and case book, I was worried that I was just totally missing something.

Personally it feels a little ridiculous to still require a skater to perform the whole ceding process when all opponents with superior position chose to actively skate forward and by doing so make the choice to give up that superior position.

At the same time I can see how not requiring the skater to perform the whole ceding process in certain scenarios sort of lets them deny the opponents an opportunity to capitalize on that skater going out of bounds. The skater sort of gets to skip forward in time.

I know other rulesets have allowed skaters cede in much the same way and a quick glance at the USARS rules reveals a surprisingly short few sentences about how to handle ceding much like the WFTDA rules. All this must have come up long ago for them though, I wonder how they handle the finer points of it.